


Trajectories of Charged Particles

by whalebone



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Developing Friendship, Everybody Lives, Gen, Planet Hoth (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:35:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28943064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalebone/pseuds/whalebone
Summary: After being cooped up in Echo Base, Bodhi just wants to see the sky.
Relationships: K-2SO & Bodhi Rook
Comments: 14
Kudos: 18
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Trajectories of Charged Particles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SassySnowperson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SassySnowperson/gifts).



A small, insistent part of Bodhi told him that he was being an idiot, but he ignored it. 

He’d become quite good at ignoring the little voices in his head.

He pulled up his hood and carried on through the icy corridors, his breath misting before him. The pale walls of Echo Base had been pressing in on him for days now, echoing with strange groans as the ice shifted and settled, never still, never quiet, full of the noises and smells of too many people all crammed in to too-close quarters. He needed to get outside, even just for a few minutes. If he could take in a few good lungfuls of clean air he’d be able to manage for a little bit longer.

Just one look at the sky. Just one.

No one stopped him. He stumbled out of the base, shoving the door closed as quickly as possible. The cold sliced through him like a vibroblade, making him gasp. The cold on Hoth had been a shock, at first; Jedha’s permanent winter had been nothing like this, not even when its winds were at their strongest. Cassian, native of icy Fest, had taught them how to wrap up in layers, how to avoid snow blindness, how to recognise the beginnings of frostbite and hypothermia.

He had also told them not to go out alone, and especially not in the dark. Soon, though, everything would be dark, for months: the sun was only a finger’s breadth above the snowy horizon, its dying rays spilling scarlet across the land, the distant mountains glittering like rubies. Once it disappeared, this part of Hoth would be plunged into a months’ long night, and the sun wouldn’t appear again until they turned towards a tentative spring.

Bodhi walked a little way from the base, the snow creaking and crunching under his boots. It was walkable for a little way, packed down by the movements of earlier patrols. Further out it became much deeper, so that you could only traverse it with clumsy snowshoes or a light-footed tauntaun. Bodhi walked as far out as he dared, keeping his eyes fixed on the open space before him. 

He took a deep, long breath, his nose and throat burning with the cold, and almost laughed as he breathed out again. The sky blazed crimson and gold above, and the brightness of it brought tears to his eyes, splintering his vision into brilliant facets. 

Quicker than he could have imagined, the sun sank. The sky turned indigo. A final hint of flame at the horizon, and then it was gone.

There was no moon. The stars seemed remote, barely-there pinpricks. Bodhi didn’t know this quadrant at all, could barely pick out a single place that he knew. Was Alderaan up there, a bright ghost? 

Was Jedha?

He shivered beneath his layers of furs. 

Something moved behind him, and Bodhi spun around so fast he nearly fell. A huge, dark shape loomed out of the darkness, and for a terrible moment it was a tentacled mass, heaving and lurching— but then he blinked, and the tall shape became familiar, the eerie glow of pale optics the brightest thing around.

“Kay! Kriff, you scared me.”

“You were not paying attention,” the droid scolded. “Why are you out here? Are you hoping to freeze to death?”

Bodhi shrugged. He wasn’t sure K-2SO would understand his need to see the sky, or breathe the air. “Why are _you_ out here? This cold is going to mess with your systems.”

“I am not some cheap speeder,” said K-2 loftily, waving one long arm. “I was built to withstand many extreme conditions. I will still be working long after your body has begun to shut down.”

“How reassuring.”

“It was not intended to be reassuring. Why are you out here, Bodhi?”

Bodhi looked away from the droid and tipped his head back to stare up at the sky. The longer he looked the more unfamiliar stars seemed to come into view. “I wanted to see the sky.” 

“Why?” K-2’s tone was curious. He came to stand beside Bodhi, and Bodhi heard his neck-links click as he looked upwards as well.

“I’ve not been out in almost two weeks. Felt like I was going mad. More mad.” He let himself laugh a little, even as something dark whispered at the back of his mind. “D’you know, I’ve not actually _flown_ anything since Scarif? I’ll probably never be cleared to fly again. No one’s said it, but I can tell. Can’t blame them, really.” 

He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice, and failed. The stars above were cold and remote.

“Based on your medical files, there is a twenty-seven percent chance that you will be cleared to fly in the next standard year.”

“Why do you have access to— no, you know what, I don’t want to know. But those aren’t great odds.”

“That is true. But they are not impossible odds.”

Despite the knife-like cold, something flickered warmly in Bodhi’s chest. “Thanks, Kay.”

“You’re welcome. And now you have seen the sky, will you come inside? There is also a twenty-seven percent chance that you will begin to display symptoms of hypothermia.”

“In a bit.” Bodhi could feel himself starting to shiver. He wrapped his arms about himself. “It’s the shortest day of the year.”

“That is correct.”

“Back ho— back on Jedha, it would have been the Night of Lanterns. It was one of my favourite festivals, when I was a kid. They hung up lights all over the streets and the Temple, and all the kids had sparklers that changed into all different colours. When the sun went down, hundreds and hundreds of floating lanterns were sent into the air and they drifted out over the desert. You could see them float out for miles.” 

Thinking about Jedha made Bodhi’s stomach hurt. Guilt smeared across his heart. 

“Organics place too much importance on the movements of stars and planets,” K-2SO said. “It’s just physics.”

“There’s a bit more to it than that,” Bodhi protested. “It’s… something to share with people.”

“You share the cycle of the sun?”

“Well… yeah, in a way. On Jedha, no one had much of anything, and when the nights got longer and darker and everything got even colder, it was… hard. Harder than usual. When you celebrated the Night of Lanterns it meant that you’d made it through another year, that _everyone_ had made it through another year, and things were going to start getting lighter and warmer again. It was hopeful.”

“Perhaps the Guardians would observe this with you. Inside. There are lamps and candles in the stores.”

“They’re probably needed for more important things.” Bodhi kicked unhappily at the snow. “Anyway, it doesn’t feel right, to celebrate something Jedhan when Jedha’s… gone. It’s not so hopeful, now.”

“Cassian says that rebellions are built on hope,” K-2SO said. His vocabulator was pitched to a surprisingly gentle tone, though the effect was ruined when he added, “That is ridiculous, of course. Rebellions are built on strategy and accurate intelligence.”

Something flickered above. A strange sound filled the air, like a crackle of static. Sparks danced across K-2’s plating, and his optics flickered.

In the sky, pale waves shimmered in the darkness, like great curtains of light. They danced and swayed, pale green and pink fire against the inky sky. Bodhi’s heart lodged in his throat. He suddenly felt very small and utterly insignificant. A single small human and a single droid in the great expanse of Hoth. 

“Oh,” he breathed. 

“Yes.” K-2’s vocabulator was oddly staticky.

“What did you say, earlier? ‘It’s just physics’?”

“And so it is. That does not mean it’s not… impressive.”

“Fair enough.” Bodhi glanced up at the droid. The magnificent lights were reflecting off his chassis. “You know, we wouldn’t have seen them, if it weren’t for the darkness.”

K-2 met his gaze. “Is this another vague human metaphor about hope?”

Bodhi laughed, and turned his eyes back up to the beautiful lights, hope flickering like a new candle in his chest.


End file.
